The Process of Educational Revolution Within the Inns of Court

Essay by WopUniversity, Bachelor'sB+, March 2004

download word file, 9 pages 3.0

Downloaded 34 times

The Process of Educational Revolution Within the Inns of Court

Stemming from scholarly demand and defeating academic competition to adapt successful methods of modification, the Inns of Court in England were the subjects of nothing less than a revolution. The inns of the fourteenth century fought for some three hundred years before collapsing under the pressure of modern desires. It began before the emergence of the four great inns, namely Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple, in fact, one could argue the revolution began with the boarding-houses, colleges and universities. Boarding houses were the primary foundation for the inns. Unlike the hysterical universities where students lived in poverty, attended lectures if they so desired and were the subjects of gruesome oral examinations, they offered cheaper living, regular meals and respectable management . Dissimilar to colleges though, the boarding houses offered no lectures, only peace of mind for worried parents and irritated townspeople.

All the same, they were remarkably similar to the earliest inns.

Before their initial revolution, the inns were nothing more than a method for saving money and avoiding burden. When legal business was in session for the four short periods a year in London, those being from Michaelmas and ending before Advent, resuming upon Hilary and ending with the first divagations of Septuagesima, continuing with the quindene of Easter through harvest-tide, and finally from the Octave of Trinity to harvest time, lawyers desired the reassurance of a place to lodge . Renting a house and hiring a chef and servants guaranteed lawyers and those associated with the church a place to stay, a warm meal and the knowledge that they were saving money the whole while. The popularity of the inns grew, and by the fourteenth century their numbers increased rapidly. It is unclear...